


The Mapperton House

by astronicht (1Boo)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Post-War, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-26 02:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14991146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1Boo/pseuds/astronicht
Summary: Harry Potter regards his inheritance. Draco Malfoy preserves a croquet lawn.Or: After the war, Harry inherits a manor home in the south of England. It is called Mapperton.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So last September I visited the real Mapperton House. One thing led to another, but I blame you entirely, H.
> 
> I've got 17k of this piled up, but it grows very slowly and softly. It's unbeta'd, so please let me know if I messed up anything in a wild way. This was nearly called "some untidy spot" because of my newfound Auden obsession.
> 
> "They never forgot  
> That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course  
> Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot  
> Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse  
> Scratches its innocent behind on a tree."  
> \- WH Auden, The Musée des Beaux Arts

James Potter had been _nouveau riche_ , sort of. Courtesy of his grandfather, the potions tycoon. Did third generation count as new money? Doubtless. Anyhow, new money or old money, Harry had never dreamed of inheriting a vault of gold when he was eleven, when he walked head-down along the lanes of Little Whinging looking for pound coins. Normally he just found the bigger, shinier 10p and 2p, but sometimes the young queen’s scratched up face winked back at him, and he’d try to buy sweets off kids at school.

He knew James and Lily Potter had lived in Godric’s Hollow, in an old cottage that was a shell now. It was an inheritance, but a bleak one. Like inheriting a funeral. The gold vault had been quite enough. Hogwarts had been quite enough. And then the whole, prophecy and birthright thing had been a little more than enough, and by the time he was eighteen and somehow alive ( _still_ alive implied a continuity of alive-ness that now felt misleading), he was not interested in any more inheritance. He’d seen his parents come as murdered ghosts from a wand, from a stone. He was banned from keeping his gold in Gringotts for five years thanks to the dragon incident -- the goblins having been talked down from a lifetime ban, and maybe a beheading --, and had to beg McGonagall to let him keep it hidden in Hogwarts. Inheritance dealt with.

Hermione rented a large flat in Muggle London, and never spent any time there. After all, at first she was still doing Hogwarts, taking her NEWTS. She operated more like a professor’s assistant than anything else though; she was free to leave at any time, and she went a lot of places. Even now that she had finished seventh year last June, Harry hadn’t seen her in a month, though she wrote every Sunday and Wednesday. Ron got Mondays and Fridays. The flat was very well-situated for access to the Ministry, to the Portkey ports, to places that they all needed to be and needed to go to. Hermione had signed the paperwork, but Harry thought the Ministry paid their rent. The tenants were a rotating cast; Neville called it the Hermione’s Home for Postwar Witches & Wizards. Harry did not see much of everyone. He was busy. There were trials.

He only went out at night, otherwise. He’d never really seen Muggle London, aside from on the run; he liked the randomness of it. One night he tried to go to Chinatown and only managed to buy some bubble tea before he was swept up in a mob of hundreds of drunk Germans in footballer jerseys and was pushed a few streets over, where he wound up wandering into the lobby of a West End production. The receptionist tried to explain that he’d missed the show, but he was distracted by men and women running through the lobby in full 19th century costume, darting from one side of the stage to another, explained the pained receptionist, and could he please not bring outside food in here?

He went to Camden Town and bought a Tshirt with an otter on it for Hermione. He bought an Arsenal jersey, because he had vague memories of cheering them on silently from the back of the Privet Drive living room. The Dursleys cheered for Chelsea, so he’d only really been a reactionary Arsenal fan, but so what? In a back stall that you had to know how to find, he bought some knockoff novelty potions, some singing jewelry. Christmas was coming up, after all. A man stopped him and freestyled a rap about a thin guy trying to get by; Harry bought his CD for two pounds. The queen winked at him as he dropped the coins into the man’s hand. He bought chips in the underground, and drowned them in vinegar, and held them to warm his hands. He bought one of those new oyster cards, because he was never, ever stopped on the tube. People crazier than him weren’t stopped on the tube.

He went to a lot of trials. It took some time. It took about a year and a half.

Then a letter came, and it began with,

 

_Mr Harry Potter, regarding your inheritance--_

 

Mr Potter did not want to regard his inheritance any more. Mostly his inheritance had been a war. He took himself to the Globe that night, because Hermione had written from wherever she was and said he should, and that groundlings tickets were only five quid. When he was eleven and suddenly in possession of a room full of gold, he had loved buying the biggest, the most. Now he felt himself falling into some early-learned frugality. Five pounds sounded sensible. He wore comfy trainers and accidentally arrived early enough to be at the front of the queue, and then had his elbows on the stage. It was the last play of the season; it was cold and he shared a blanket with three Sotheby’s interns.

It was _Othello_.

He walked home, as much of the distance as his feet could stand. It was early enough that the tube was still running, and he didn’t need to deal with night buses, though the Knight Bus was fine, if still vomit-inducing. He walked. It was the center of London; it was the golden mile and the Thames. He went past London Bridge to Tower Bridge, because it was nicer. Smiled at the Knob, frowned at the construction. He ducked down the steep steps with all the tourists sheltering from the wind and walked back along the Thames in front of the Tower. It was not quite November, but edging close; he bought a poppy and pinned it to his coat. Years of Hogwarts uniforms had ruined him, and he hadn’t chosen his clothes as a kid either, so he mostly wore black. Black robes and cloak, or a black peacoat that brushed his knees. He fit into London like that.

Even so -- he turned away from staring at the grassy green Tower moat and up the hill, cutting through a frosty mid-city playground and past the station. He felt them, always -- hands reaching out from the crowd, touching his coat, pinching like a bit of him could be grabbed. They could be gentle too -- wisps of touch, pilgrims come to their holy relic like he was the kissing stone.

He felt himself unravelling at the edges. The last trial was in the morning. Not the very last, but the last he felt compelled to attend. The worst was mostly behind him. He’d tried not to become a second judge in the Wizengamot, handing down verdicts of guilt or innocence. He’d tried to only speak up when he was defending someone. There had been exceptions. There had been successes and failures.

Ron was angry and wanted no one involved to walk free again. He wanted no one near his family who could hurt them, ever again. Maybe it was Hermione’s influence, or maybe Ron too was sick of rage, because he at least only ever voiced the second half of that statement publicly. Hermione herself wanted to have nothing to do with the right and wrong. She said she didn’t know her own mind anymore. She said once, only to Harry, that what she had done to her parents was quite enough to make her feel dirty. What she wanted was to overhaul the judicial system. What to do with Azkaban sans Dementors. Take out old loopholes. Draw up better laws.

Harry gave up after a while, lights swimming in front of him, and picked a Muggle bus. He went to the top deck and felt it lurch and swing, and liked how he could have both, Wizarding busses and London busses. Below him, rows of ground floor kebab shops and tattoo parlors and upmarket sushi stops and chippies and Sainsbury's locals and off-licensed shops and Save the Childrens whizzed by. Down some dark roads he saw other signs, Wizarding ones glowing for those who could see them, the wide spread of Diagon and Knockturn-adjacent streets settling cobweb-thin into the geography of Muggle London. And then there too were little bubbles of Wizarding sections that Harry hadn’t known about. Some were just houses. Short rows of homes popping in and out of existence from one set of eyes to the next. Warm places, where through a front window, the green glow of a floo call showed, instead of a TV.

Somewhere, a radio announcer was reviewing the latest news of the brawl back in October between the Holyhead Harpies and Puddlemere United, and the reappearance of vanished Chaser Wilda Griffiths in Malaysia. Somewhere, a TV pundit was running clips of Tony Blair.

He got back to the flat; it let in anyone with the password, which he’d wondered if they’d get tired of after so many years of it, but apparently the habit was ingrained, and easier than trying to come up with something new.

“A Collector’s Guide to Antique Succulents,” said Harry to the door. They’d let Neville set the password. It was always whatever book he was starting that month, and was scrawled on a charmed blackboard in the kitchen. It wasn’t a dire secret. This wasn’t the war, or Hogwarts.

Ron was home, and somewhere down the magically enhanced hallway, two charmed record players softly scratched out music -- Celestina Warbeck vied quietly with Kurt Kobain.

The sofa under the window was huge, puffy, and a bright, shaggy orange that was Ron’s fault. It was immensely comfortable, however. Harry collapsed next to Ron and put his feet up, staring at his big toe poking a hole in his sock.

Ron looked up from his Christmas present from last year, when the war had just been fought, and was over, and Hermione could charm things for fun instead of for survival. It was a chess set which fought against Ron, and learned his moves. Apparently as further motivation to win, Hermione had made it so that the pieces spoke mostly French, and entirely refused to swear in English. This had had the unexpected effect of teaching Ron a very serviceable French accent, so long as he wanted to say, “I piss on you, and all your friends, you gigantic fuckhead!”

Harry was pretty sure Ron was going to win the respect of Fleur this Christmas, thereby causing a rift with Ginny that would last until Easter. He was prepared to start the betting pool with any takers as soon as they arrived at the Burrow next Friday.

“Oh, Harry,” said Ron, not looking up from his match.

 _“‘Arry le merdant!”_ yelled a rook from the board.

“ _Mec ta gueule,_ ” Ron told it. “Yeah, a letter came for you.”

The letter was tossed over, and Harry recognized the same handwriting from the morning. He opened it and glanced at the first line to be sure, then sighed and set it aside.

Neville wandered in, and saw that Harry was home. “Last one tomorrow then?” he asked, going to put the kettle on. He pulled out Harry and Ron’s mugs along with his own, popped one bag in his, one bag in Harry’s and three in Ron’s, which was the size of a cereal bowl.

The kettle turned bright red and sneezed, which was how you knew it was done.

“Yeah,” Harry said slowly.

“That’s good then,” said Neville, floating sugar cubes across the kitchenette. “I don’t think it’s good for you to keep going like this. It will be good to quit.”

Harry frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Ron muttered.

Neville wiped his hands thoughtfully on a tea towel. Neville had bought the tea towels. He seemed more together than the rest of them, a lot of the time. Maybe Harry was getting it together too, because he had an inkling of what Neville was getting at, maybe.

Harry said, a little gruff, “I don’t think spending all anyone’s waking hours in some dark courtroom is supposed to be _good_ for me, you know. I just thought I needed to do it.”

“And now you don’t anymore!” Neville said brightly, tapping at their milk pitcher until it leapt up and dashed generous splashes into the mugs. “Isn’t that nice.”

Ron grunted.

Neville brought over milky tea for all of them, and kept his mug, giving a vague wave and shuffling back to his room.

After Neville left, Ron turned to Harry, and after his muttering mood, Harry was surprised to see him wearing a crooked little grin. “We’re a right pair of moody arseholes, aren’t we,” he said. “Post-war arseholes.”

“You’re… you’re right to be angry,” Harry said slowly, wondering if Ron meant that he knew that Harry knew that Ron didn’t always agree with Harry’s stance in the trials. “About, y’know. Them. And everything. Even for me some of them, the collaborators,” -- not a word in his vocabulary, Pre-War, now a standard slickness on his tongue -- “Don’t seem apologetic enough. And--”

Ron cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Nah, Harry. Just, you were downright moody in school, and I was just angry all the time….”

“You’re still angry all the time.”

“Don’t tell Hermione. She’ll find me a new therawitch.” Harry grunted, and Ron eyeballed him, said, sly, “What, still don’t want one?”

“Who the hell is _qualified_ ,” groaned Harry, flopping back on the sofa, and Ron laughed.

“Post-War Arseholes for life, then,” he said, toasting Harry with his tea (it sloshed over the rim and a soaked bishop cried out in protest).

“Sure,” said Harry, “arseholes for life,” and he almost smiled.

 

He mostly napped till it was Friday, after walking out of the Wizengamot for what was hopefully the last time, though he wouldn’t bet his bottom galleon. Then Ron packed them two identical bags of clothes and toiletries and not much else, Harry fished his Christmas presents out of their hiding place under the floorboard, and they piled it all together in front of the grand fireplace, alongside the fireplace shoe rack, the robe rack, and everyone else’s slowly accumulating Christmas packing piles. Some were bigger than theirs, even though most of the flat wouldn’t be leaving for a few weeks. It was only the first of November.

There were a lot of rooms in Hermione’s Halfway House. She hadn’t quite figured out a room-of-requirement style charm to make the flat grow more rooms when need arose, but would cheerfully do the job herself if need be, and after years in dormitories and then in tents, or the old Room itself, most residents wouldn’t have minded sharing quarters anyway.

Luna had a Christmas pile, and Neville, and Finnegan and a few kids who’d weathered seventh year at school that Harry hadn’t known too well, but were nice. Cho Chang had enough stuff in the flat that she had her own pile, even though she kept an apartment in Glasgow and hated London.

Harry and Ron eyed the wrapping of everyone else’s Christmas parcels, looked at their own, which were 80% spellotape, and shared a glance.

“Honestly, we’ll have so much under the tree this year that I doubt anyone will notice,” said Ron, in the painfully hopeful tones of someone who’s mother definitely, always noticed that sort of thing.

Harry shrugged. Last Christmas it had felt like he was still in shock, but at least everyone had been. Now, would it be cheerful? He didn’t think he would be mourning alone, but would the Weasleys and everyone be able to set down their griefs, stack them under the tree with the presents, only to be opened when the guests were gone and the Burrow was quiet again, snow inching up to the kitchen windows? Could he, Harry, do that?

Luna and Cho appeared, heads together and talking about something that looked mildly urgent, but nothing Harry had to deal with. Cho had gotten better with Luna, according to Neville; had become sort of her champion, and Luna Cho’s advisor. Cho Chang had in fact, in the name of Luna Lovegood’s honor, started one of the courtroom brawls Harry had born witness to, and the only one he’d enjoyed.

“Hey Harry,” said Cho.

“It’s good to see you before you go,” said Luna, tilting her head.

“You too, Luna,” said Harry.

“Floo’s ready,” called Ron, kneeling by the fireplace, his freckled face glowing green from the fire.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and Luna said, “We’ll visit before advent, Harry.”

Harry gathered all his things in his arms, tried not to drop his present to Mr Weasley into the floo network, and called out, “The Burrow!”

 

The bustle and noise of the Burrow was nothing like that of London, or even their odd flat. It was loud but not noisy. Outside, it had snowed already, while in London there wouldn’t be any.

There was a hush to it, when Harry escaped Mrs Weasley’s embraces and Teddy’s screeching and went out on the stoop. In the garden, gnomes were shivering and warming their hands around a little fire in an old bean can. In the windswept blue sky, which stretched from one hilly moor to another, Ginny was a speck on her broomstick.

Most of the family wasn’t home yet; Hermione couldn’t make it till closer to Christmas. But Harry wanted out of London for a little bit, at least. And following Ron home for the holidays was an ingrained habit.

He was drifting, sure, but he thought -- bitterly -- that he maybe he’d earned it. He had all those gold galleons, after all. He had that whole war in his stomach. He had an inheritance to live on.

He watched as the speck that was Ginny leapt into a spectacular dive, aiming right for the garden, aerodynamic and swift. He realized she was chasing something, eyes picking out a telltale shadow before her in the sky. He wondered if she was practicing with a quaffle or a snitch, and then the shadow formed itself into a tawny owl who was hurtling in terror towards the garden, as Ginny gave out a war-whoop and and pulled up at the last second, robes smacking in the wind, and the owl blew a crater in the snowy holly hedge about six feet from Harry’s place on the stoop.

“Hiya, Harry,” said Ginny, one hand still on her broomstick, hopping gently to the ground. She tried to fish out the owl from the hedge and snow, but it flailed at the sight of her. Harry sighed, removed the snow from his glasses, and went to help, getting his gloves scratched to hell in the process.

“Oh, it’s for you,” Ginny said, peering over his shoulder, the goggles she wore against the cold making her look like an owl, too.

The address read,

 

_Mr Harry Potter_

_The Front Stoop_

_The Burrow_

 

He recognized the handwriting from the last two letters, and tucked it into his cloak with a sigh.

“What is it?” asked Ginny, squinting at him. “Is someone harassing you again?”

“I don’t need you giving anyone _else_ a Glasgow kiss in my honor,” muttered Harry, who had learned this term from Cho.

“I already did.”

“Probably why I’m concerned.”

Harry had only heard about the incident secondhand, from Neville, who had been very impressed with Ginny’s ability to smash bottles on other peoples’ faces (but had administered first aid, anyway). If Harry was overly concerned with avoiding playing jury, judge, and executioner, Ginny wasn’t so bothered.

Ginny shrugged and walked wordlessly into the house. She didn’t seem angry, or anything. Ginny just didn’t talk as much as she used to. She was focused. Words were meted out like rations. Mostly, she flew. Harry could get that, at least. Maybe they were too much alike after all. Too much of Tom Riddle in their heads; too much time spent wishing they had bird-bones, wishing all they could feel was a deep and empty sky all around them.

“I’ll open it for you,” Ginny said when they were in the kitchen, shedding cloaks. Mrs Weasley and her charge were absent, though sounds were coming from the pantry, and a rolling pin was enthusiastically flattening some dough for gingerbread on the counter near Harry’s elbow.

“I can do it myself, Gin,” Harry said. He fumbled his gloves off and snatched the letter out of the pocket of his cloak. He slipped his index finger under the flap and broke the unfamiliar golden wax seal.

The letter read,

 

_Dear Mr Potter,_

_Regarding your inheritance, I write to inform you that you have not finalized the documentation to pass ownership of Mapperton House, Dorset, from your father, James Potter to yourself, Harry Potter. This property is entailed to you as sole owner and heir, as of your seventeenth birthday (31.07.1997). As it is now over two years past that date, we are concerned that your entailment will expire, and under Wizarding Ancient Property Law (see bill 4549, section 24A), the property will become public, and under the full purvey of the Ministry of Magic._

_As the will of James Potter specifically dictates that the property be left to any son or daughter of himself and wife, Lily Potter nee Evans, and considering the extenuating circumstances, I have taken it upon myself to ensure that your opinion is taken into account, and that you do not neglect your family’s property._

_Please contact me at your earliest convenience,_

_Cecil W.M. Brownott_

_Properties of Wizarding Importance_

 

Harry spent so much time reading this letter that Ginny easily managed to read it too, and finally he let the parchment fall but couldn’t meet Ginny’s eyes.

“I didn’t know your dad had a will,” Ginny said after a pause.

 _“I_ didn’t know my dad had a will,” Harry replied. He stared dazedly and Mrs Weasley’s bewitched kitchen appliances, as cookie cutters descended en masse on the rolled-out gingerbread dough. Anger was a distant thing, but it was sounding far off somewhere.

He studied the letter again. At first he had assumed that there had been some mix up, and someone was writing him about Grimmauld Place by accident. Harry had taken that property, though, and on Hermione and Bill’s recommendation had leased it out to the Curse-Breaker’s Guild of London, as training and research for their recruits. He certainly had never even _been_ to Dorset -- or if he had, it had been nothing but an anonymous copse of trees, or a terrified run into a village for supplies. Dorset not at war, not watched from the shadows, he had never seen.

He might’ve ignored this letter like the last ones, if not for _that_ line, for those mentions of his mother and father. His father had had a will? Why had Harry never seen it? More questions for Dumbledore; more questions for Remus and Sirius; more questions for the dead.

He didn’t need Ron’s therawitch to tell him that that was the wrong path to go down. He shook himself.

“Dunno what the hell the rest of it is,” he mumbled, “but I’m writing back about my Dad’s will, at least. Who knows what else people kept me from knowing about as a kid?”

“Not stopping you,” said Ginny, an odd look on her windburnt face.

 

Harry wrote a reply. It just read, _I want a notarized copy of my dad’s will before I proceed._

Maybe so much time in the Wizengamot had helped his vocabulary.

He sent it off with the shaken owl, after feeding her a little gingerbread and milk, and then a mouse that Crookshanks (who vacationed at the Burrow when unable or unwilling to travel with Hermione) deposited too-helpfully at his feet. The reply came before dinner, several sheets of parchment tied together with black velvet, plus an outer sheet, which read in the familiar hand of the mysterious Cecil Brownott,

 

_Mr Potter,_

_Here is the paperwork requested. I must make clear that I and the P.W.I. only have access to those parts of the will pertaining to property rights. I hope that this is adequate for your needs._

_We are glad to have contact with you before the critical time, and are anxious to continue correspondence and a proper hand-off._

_Regards,_

_Cecil WM Brownott,_

_Properties of Wizarding Importance_

 

And after that followed some legaleze that Harry could only parse because of the past year in courtrooms. He pressed down the pages, traced the forms of their names; tried to feel something of his parents talking through the paper, as they bequeathed on him the rest of James Potter’s tycoon grandfather’s inheritance: a property far to the south called Mapperton House.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhh i messed around with London a bit, because the Knob and oyster cards weren't a thing till about 2002 but eh, close enough. Sort of. It's 1999.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry told Ron about it. He’d kinda clammed up the last few years, but if they were going to be post-war arseholes together now, Harry might as well share his arsehole-y thoughts. If Ron got tired of it then he could stop listening.

They were sipping firewhiskey neat up in Ron’s tiny room, hiding from Mrs Weasley like they hadn’t been legal for two years now. Ginny had come and gone. Harry watched the snow fall past the window, and the snitch that zoomed between five different posters of Chudley Cannons seekers. The Cannons had won two matches this year and tied a third, resulting in an influx of new posters papering over the old. The  _ Prophet _ headline, CANONS SNAP 17 GAME LOSING STREAK, G.M. RAGMAR DORKINS FAINTS FROM SHOCK was proudly framed above Ron’s bed.

“So I found out today that my dad had a will,” Harry said.

“Come again?” said Ron, sloshing way too much into his glass.

“Yeah, that’s about what I said. Only, well, fuck that. My parents have been dead what, eighteen years? That’s nearly two decades for someone to get their shit together and tell me.”

Ron’s forehead creased. “You don’t think Dumbledore kept it from you on purpose, do you?”

Harry shrugged. “Maybe,” he muttered. “Wouldn’t be surprising. But I’m tired of guessing what Dumbledore meant, what Dumbledore would do here, what he was trying to do back then. Hell, it could’ve been McGonagall who didn’t tell me. It could’ve been  _ Sirius.” _

Ron hummed. “Don’t think Sirius would keep that from you. At least not on purpose.”

“If you’d asked me when I was fifteen, I would’ve said the same thing about Dumbledore,” said Harry darkly, feeling very much the Post-War Moody Arsehole.

Ron shrugged. Harry felt uselessly angry.

“Here’s part of the will,” said Harry, fishing it out of his pocket. “Does this look fishy to you?”

Ron took it and squinted hard at the parchment. Slowly, he read it through and handed it back.

“Nah mate, looks real, for all I know about that sort of thing. Guess you now own a manor house. D’ya think Malfoy will be jealous?”

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“You two can throw garden parties together.”

“Maybe I should just donate it,” Harry said, frowning, his insides twisting. Ron’s eyes widened.

“ _ Donate  _ it?” Ron demanded. “Before you’ve ever seen it. I mean, maybe I want to see it?”

“Really?” Harry asked. Ron sighed.

“Well I mean, you know Mum wants us all...close. So, not till the new year. But it could be cool. And it was your Dad’s.”

“I’m gonna meet with this Cecil person,” Harry decided. “I can at least ask about Dad’s will. And if my mum had one too.”

“Sounds good to me,” shrugged Ron. “And hey, you can let me know when you’re going, and I can Apparate in if I don’t get an owl in three hours.”

“I don’t think it will be that dangerous,” said Harry gruffly, despite his persistent feeling that everything was dangerous nowadays.

“Hey, it’ll give me something to do,” said Ron, staring down at the glasses Harry had conjured for both of them.

“Okay,” Harry said. After a while longer they banished the glasses and hid the firewhiskey with Ron’s girlie magazines. It was so silent after London, even with the ghoul in Ron’s attic rattling the pipes every once in a while. Some part of Harry was trying to unknot, but didn’t quite know how.

He realized, as he lay in bed watching the Chudley Cannons snatch awkwardly for the snitch, that he’d forgotten to mention to Ron that he and Draco Malfoy would not be having garden parties together, because Malfoy Manor had been seized as part of the war reparations. He’d been at that trial. He should know.

 

\---

Harry Potter had grown up in Greater London, and the Dursleys had never known much about the National Trust, though Uncle Vernon had _ mis _ trusted it after he found out it was not a bank. As such, he hadn’t seen much in the way of stately homes, and still pictured manor houses as a mix between Hogwarts and his childhood imaginings of what sort of castle would spit out Draco Malfoy.

He’d seen Malfoy Manor recently, of course. But he hoped a house illegally seized during wartime by a murderous despot, in which his best friend had been tortured, wasn’t representative. In any case, he wasn’t sure what he did expect. Perhaps just something impossibly grand that would make him feel like he had dirt on his nose and hair standing up.

What he hadn’t expected was chickens.

“Good to meet you, Mr Potter,” said a man striding across the muddy carpark towards him. Harry was glad he’d opted for Muggle clothes. He hadn’t been expecting the Potter manor house to have a carpark, either. It was empty today, but for a battered and probably magically enhanced red beetle bug. He assumed that this belonged to the rapidly approaching Cecil Brownott.

Mr Brownott shook his hand. He was a little man with a white moustache and a completely bald head. Somewhat peculiarly, he was also dressed Muggle, in a perfect suit in sepia corduroy. But instead of leather loafers, he wore a pair of bright green wellies.

Harry peered around the carpark, but there was only a row of hedges at one end, some open fields of grass to another, and a copse of trees around it all. He could barely see a bit of ivy-covered wall poking out a little further down the lane. He’d taken the nine o’clock portkey into Toller Whelme, a small village in the ripple of two hills, and gotten walking directions from there. The rise at the end of the lane looked out on clear blue sky, but the wind bit. He wondered if they were close to the coast; he’d barely really looked at a map, beyond locating the nearest village.

“We’ve had an expert in to take care of the place while we were getting in contact with you,” said Cecil Brownott, a little pointedly once he’d released Harry’s hand. “Places like this fall into disrepair so quickly! And the last house manager, well, I’m afraid that about two and a half years ago she up and left, off to Venezuela.”

Harry thought that was a very circuitous way of saying the last house manager fled during the rise of Voldemort. He tried not to grind his teeth.

Mr Brownott had paused, and produced another pair of wellies, about two inches long and balanced in the palm of his hand. These were red.

“What size are you, Mr Potter?” asked Mr Brownott, drawing his wand and brandishing it at the wellies.

“Er,” said Harry. “Nine and a half?”

Mr Brownott poked at the wellies until they’d grown appropriately, and handed them to Harry with a sniff. Harry looked down at his trainers, which were rapidly collecting mud. Mulishly, he took the proffered wellies and tried to take one trainer off, balancing on one foot, while shoving the wellie on. It was not the most elegant he’d ever felt. A chicken came to investigate.

“Er, are the chickens mine too?” he asked Mr Brownott.

“Nominally,” came the chilly reply. “Are you aware of how estates are run, Mr Potter?”

“Not really,” muttered Harry to the second wellie.

“Mapperton House is proud to be both a Property of Wizarding Importance and a Muggle National Trust property. As such, part of our revenue is tourism, as is standard.”

He started up the lane, and Harry, muddy trainers in hand, struggled to follow.

Past the trees, the muddy lane opened onto a low stone wall, behind which was what looked like it had once been a stone-built barn. Directly in front of him, through the gap in the stone wall, was a little cottage-like structure, and orchards beyond that. They passed through the gate, and Harry found that on the inside of the stone wall ran a wooden shelf. Under this shelf were chicken coops; on top of it were a lot of scraggly, very cold looking potted plants, with little stickers that labeled what they were, and priced them.

The little cottage had two doors; one had a little wooden sign that read PROPERTIES OF WIZARDING IMPORTANCE. The other read, NATIONAL TRUST.

“Muggles can only see the National Trust door,” Mr Brownott explained. “That’s where one pays for tickets if one wishes to tour the house and grounds. It’s shut up for the winter season.”

Harry looked around nervously and nearly tripped over another chicken.

To his left, the lane continued. The barn-like structure was covered in ivy, through which the wind hissed. Across the lane from it, and almost directly in front of Harry, was a little churchyard and a little church; beyond that, what looked like a much grander gate and stone wall. The lane went on up the hill, lined with huge, ancient trees, and ran onwards somewhere beyond the rise.

“The stables,” Mr Brownott said, indicating what Harry had thought was a barn. Oh well. “There’s been talk of converting them into a little cafe, for guests in the tour season.” And here he’d been wondering if he’d inherited horses as well, or maybe thestrals. He figured he could always donate anything he didn’t know how to deal with to Hagrid. “Would you like a quick look at the house itself before we get down to business?”

“Er, yeah,” said Harry. The lane became gravel to crunch down beneath his feet. They passed between the churchyard and the not-quite-stables, and came to what appeared to be some sort of roundabout with a lawn in the middle on Harry’s left, behind the stables, and the grand gates on his right.

It was not huge the way Hogwarts was huge, or even the way Malfoy Manor had been huge. Two or three floors, the main entrance parallel to the gate, two wings jutting towards him in a U shape. And it was old - old in a way that was settled, and self-assured. There was some sort of coat of arms in the stone above the entrance, worn away. Ivy grew; new earth was turned at the edges of the front garden - as Harry thought of it - and some sickly rhododendrons edged it.

“Directly in front of you is the oldest part of the house,” Mr Brownott informed him from his elbow, making him jump. “From the 11th century, it was only owned by four Wizarding families, all linked by the female line, until it was sold to  Ethel Labouchere in 1919.” Harry had been listening to the whistle of wind against stone, and wondering - had his father spent much time here? Had his mother ever seen it? “How did it come into my Dad’s family?” Harry asked, tracing that faded crest with his eyes.

Mr Brownott raised an eyebrow, but said delicately, “Mr Potter, Ethel Labouchere married your great grandfather.”

“She was my great grandmother?” Harry asked, still transfixed, distracted. A curl of humiliation spawned in his stomach.

“That is correct, Mr Potter.” A hand took his elbow and genteely steered him back towards the stables. Harry went.

“We only got the new steward in last Spring,” Mr Brownott said. Upon reaching the “stables”, he unlatched the modern-ish door. It opened into a warm space that smelled of plaster and fresh plywood; it looked as if someone was starting in on this cafe idea already. “After you. My apologies for the mess; renovations are a part of life with old homes. Please sit on that bench right there, Mr Potter. Right, our new man will be able to brief you in the particulars of your estate.” The door creaked and Harry glanced up. “And, ah-- here he his. Mr Potter, this is Mr--”

“Fuck,” said Draco Malfoy from the doorway.

 

“Mr Fuck?” said Harry slowly, staring at Draco Malfoy, dressed in Muggle trousers and wrapped in a Wizarding cloak. His eyes were gray; they had always been. One of his front canines was almost a snaggletooth; it had always been. These were things Harry knew. It was just that he wasn’t expecting to know them here. Maybe he wasn’t expecting to know them anymore, anywhere at all.

Malfoy had never flushed much, no matter the anger or humiliation, despite being as pale as Harry was dark. Still, Harry had spent literal years catching out the faint red bloom high on his cheekbones, and could catch it now. Malfoy swallowed a full three times.

“Mr Malfoy!” exclaimed Mr Brownott.

“No, it’s okay,” Harry found himself saying, totally independent of thought. “We know each other.”

This did not exactly save Mr Brownott from looking extremely discomfited.

“Draco Malfoy,” said Harry slowly, the name settling oddly on his tongue before he gave breath to it. “What are you doing running my house?”

This at least broke Malfoy from his embarrassment.

_ “Your _ house, Potter? If you’d ignored Cecil for two more weeks,  _ your house  _ would have begun its probationary period for the transition over to becoming a Ministry property. They were going to  _ send me to talk to you, Potter. _ ” He shuddered a little. “I would have turned up at your scummy London  _ flat _ .”

“Then why are you so surprised?” asked Harry.

“Client confidentiality; I only knew this was - was an old Wizarding house, with an owner in London, and that she needed a lot of care  _ she was not getting _ .”

Harry did not appreciate being guilted by Draco Malfoy, as odd an interaction as it was. “Malfoy….” he began, but Mr Brownott interrupted.

“Mr Potter, do you have an objection to Mr Malfoy as steward of Mapperton House? I assure you, he had undergone due process of law Post-War, and is a valued employee.”

Malfoy really did flush this time; he looked like he’d been slapped. This distracted Harry from being offended as well. He turned finally away from Malfoy, and stared levelly at Mr Brownott.

“Mr Brownott, I am well aware that Draco Malfoy has paid his dues. I attended that trial.”

He had more than attended; he had stood on the godawful witness stand and defended Draco and Narcissa Malfoy at that trial. Probably, he had been the force that directed them away from Azkaban. He was probably  _ also _ the reason Malfoy no longer had a house of his own to manage, and had gone and, inexplicably, gotten Harry’s instead. But saying any of that seemed like the worst sort of breach of - something. Trust, he would say, only there had never been any trust between them. Unless you counted the Fiendfyre. Unless you counted Narcissa Malfoy, whispering in the Forest.

Then there was trust, trust so weighty that none of them could have ever wanted to look at it again, much less dissect it in front of the Wizarding world, or even just the probably benign Cecil Brownott.

Malfoy and Brownott still appeared to be waiting for something, so Harry added, “No objection, Mr Brownott.” He turned to look at Malfoy again, who hadn’t moved from where he was frozen in the doorway.

“You’re letting the wind in, Draco,” said Harry, over-friendly with the given name and a big smile just to see what would happen. He was rewarded with Malfoy’s full-body flinch. “Why don’t you give me a tour and continue, er, explaining. About the house.”

He wanted to say,  _ Explaining what the hell you’re doing here, _ but he really didn’t want Mr. Brownott sitting there wondering if  _ the  _ Mr Potter was going to be offended enough to strike down his post-Death Eater, post-War, post-Wizengamot employee.  _ Mr Potter,  _ he thought grimly, standing,  _ was pretty done with all of that. _

“After you,” he said sweetly to Draco Malfoy, who stared again, but turned on his heel and stalked off in front of Harry. Jogging to follow in slightly too-big wellies, Harry followed Draco back to the grand gate and the odd little roundabout with the lawn in the middle.

“So that’s my front garden?” said Harry, pointing to the roundabout. “Do all houses like this come with the lawn in the middle of the roundabout?”

Draco looked where his finger pointed, and seemed totally confused for a few seconds - had he expected Harry to start something? - until a sort of horrified scorn replaced it. “That is your  _ drive _ , Potter. That bit of grass is not your front garden, nor your lawn. Merlin help us. Come on, I have to give you the history of the house.”

“Do I just not have a lawn then?” Harry asked. “Or does the front garden only count if it’s inside the big gates? There’s not a lot there, considering.”

“The front - listen you, come with me to see your  _ bloody lawn.”  _ Draco Malfoy yanked open the grand iron gate with a little less ceremony than Harry thought he’d been planning on, or would have done for another client. Instead of following the flagstone path up to the front entrance, they cut left across the grass, where a few evergreen trees obscured a walkway between the wall and the left wing of the house (the right wing, Harry realized, was simply the little church, connected by a little passageway). Through this tunnel of very wet, frosty greenery, they emerged on the side of the house facing up the hill. He could only see the tall trees that lined the lane over the wall. A wide lawn stretched out, perfectly even and still a little green, despite the horrid weather. It was edged in by the wall that ran along the lane and another wall that ran along the back of it, covered in old, thick vines that might or might not be alive.

“ _ There  _ is your lawn, Potter. Please do not insult any of us by implying it is anywhere else, or any less perfect than it is. It is a  _ very nice lawn.  _ It has been cultivated since the 16th century. It is  _ ancestral. _ ”

“A bit drab, isn’t it,” said Harry, who was beginning to suspect that needling Malfoy could be just as fun as an adult as it was at school. If you ignored the war, and the Wizemgamot, and just focused on everything before being sixteen, and blood on the bathroom floor. Then it was funny. Kind of.

He felt himself tugged back down to earth. His whole body felt heavier. Draco Malfoy was still glaring at him, so he mumbled, gesturing at the ancestral lawn, “Well, the Durselys would’ve loved it,” forgetting that Malfoy could have no idea what he meant. The lawn would have easily taken the entirety of the Durselys’s row house and their own lawn and had a little room left over; Aunt Petunia would be over the moon.

“This isn’t the front of the house,” said Harry. “Is it like, a side lawn?”

“Actually, it’s the  _ croquet lawn _ ,” corrected Malfoy, very quickly and under his breath.

“What was that?” smiled Harry. Even if it was just to mess with Malfoy because he was out of his depth, he hadn’t smiled this much in forever. Apparently now he could only smile when he was being a post-war arsehole.

Draco Malfoy hissed through his teeth. “Don’t you want to see the house?”

“I’m liking the garden tour,” Harry said. “Tell me the things you’d tell somebody who’s come here to buy one of my chickens.”

“What? No one buys the chickens, Potter, their eggs are sold on Sundays at Beauminster or West Bay. They’re not for selling or eating.”

“Do the chickens have names?” asked Harry innocently.

There was a pause.

“No,” said Draco Malfoy, in a tone that Harry was interested to realize that he could translate, due to years of exposure, into a  _ Yes. _ Draco Malfoy was running his house and naming his chickens.

“So you won’t mind if I name them then?” Harry asked.

“Don’t name the chickens, Potter. Merlin’s sake. I’ll show you the gardens if you’ll just shut up.”

“My pleasure,” said Harry, smiling happily, an uncomplicated tickle of joy sitting in his chest for the first time in months. Fucking with Draco Malfoy, always a classic. Nevermind that the last time it was just uncomplicated mutual loathing was about fourth year, on the outside.

“Follow me,” said Draco Malfoy through gritted teeth. He struck out for the far corner of the lawn. Towards the back of the house, the lawn dropped away into the dip of a small valley. As they drew closer, Harry realized that some earthworks had been involved, and in the little gully of a valley, ornamental gardens spread out below them, capped with a little house-thing at the top of the slope to his left, where the valley was barely a dip, and dropping down further the longer it ran parallel behind the house until it was deep and wide. Little paths wound throughout.

“Mapperton House is known for its gardens,” said Draco, prancing down some icy steps. Harry slipped and nearly took his nose off on the planter on which he caught himself. “Unfortunately, they’ve, ahem, been allowed to fall into some disrepair, so work right now is focused on repairs and replantings.”

They reached the little glass-sided building at the top of the sloping valley, and Harry realized it was just a very nice greenhouse, rather like the ones at Hogwarts. He followed Malfoy rather more readily then, and was rewarded with a hit of warmth as they stepped in. Harry looked up and around, stroking a nearby lemon absently. Palm fronds arched above them; the sudden warmth made his nose try to run.

“This is the orangery,” Draco said, which Harry accurately translated as ‘posh greenhouse’. “Some of these specimen plants are quite old, or rare heirloom varieties of palm and citrus,” said Malfoy.

It smelled spicy and warm, like mulled wine. Harry felt the first tug of - something. He’d been saying ‘my house’ over and over to annoy Malfoy, mostly. He felt more like he was touring some property of Malfoy’s; like  _ he  _ was the tourist who would come to buy chickens and snap photos of the roundabout. But he felt the first inkling of enjoyment, or proprietary feeling. Or maybe, he just liked it.

“I like this lemon,” Harry told Malfoy very seriously. Malfoy eyeballed him and bundled them both back out into the cold.

From the vantage of the entry to the greenhouse, the garden was displayed in a masterwork of symmetry. Or would be symmetrical, if perhaps a few stone pots had not fallen off their pedestals, and wheelbarrows weren’t scattered about.

“These are the Italianate ornamental gardens,” Malfoy said. “They were replanted in 1834 to accommodate for the new principles of Arithmancy regarding numbers, space, and balance.  Ethel Labouchere, upon her acquisition of Mapperton House, renovated these gardens for a new century. Her charm-work is rather more subtle, which is helpful for giving tours. The gardens will only be open in summer months, however; during the winter they can get a little less...Muggle friendly. Nothing dangerous, just hard to get a permit from the Ministry. ”

Harry looked around. The wind rippled through the nearly-dead grass, and the sculpted shrubbery.

“Is that a cave?” Harry asked, pointing. There were grotto-like arched openings in the stone that lined each side of the steep valley walls, up some steps from the garden proper.

“Those,” said Malfoy, jaw clenched, “were the Hippogriffe roosts.”

“No more Hippogriffs?” Harry asked.

Malfoy shrugged. “Not when I got here.”

He was assiduously avoiding Harry’s eye. Harry figured that whinging about the scary, scary hippogriffs in third year wouldn’t beat out joined-the-death-eaters, or the bit with Dumbledore, or the bit with bleeding out on the bathroom floor when it came to embarrassment. Minds were strange things, though. The mind of Draco Malfoy must be strange even by Harry’s standards.

“Cool,” Harry said. “How far back does this go?”

“About a third of a mile.”

“Can we go on that path?”

“If you want. I need to show you the, ahem, the  _ lift, _ though.”

Harry stopped trying to be annoying long enough to squint at Malfoy, who was now standing under an arbor and looking decidedly uncomfortable.

“There’s a lift in my garden?” Harry said. “Proper posh, damn.”

Malfoy sent him a withering look. “I refuse to enter your death box,” he said. “But you should know it provides access between the upper and lower gardens, usually for heavy gardening equipment.”

“What do you do with your heavy gardening equipment?”

“I use my wand, like a sane wizard would.”

The contraption itself was hidden in a little, cute shack that fit the general aesthetic. Harry stuck his head in his lift, but decided not to risk it. Below him, a long pond was trying to ice over; it was not edged with more formal garden like he expected, but a lot of trees and hedges.

Malfoy dragged him out before the lift could do dastardly things to him, and took him on a little path that looped down to the ‘lower garden’. He steered Harry along rather far from the water while still walking along the increasingly narrow valley floor, sides rising steeply above them. No longer was it ornate, ordered; it was bundles of hedges and trees, and a web of paths running up the sharp slopes. Atop one slope towered the back walls of Mapperton House, and on the crests of the soft hills in front of them, not-quite-barren trees whispered. Some fall foliage was still bursting orange, bright against the windswept sky.

“Watch the pond,” said Malfoy. “There’s a bit of a grindylow infestation.” There was a suspicious glug from the pond. Harry watched as a fount of bubbles erupted on the surface. Malfoy glanced up to the house, and pointed out a stone wall that extended beyond the roofline. “Those are the kitchen gardens in there, and the orchards beyond that, till the crest of the hill.”

“Okay,” said Harry.

Malfoy sighed. “Here, come along here.”

He chose a branching path at what seemed like random, and along it they trudged up the more gentle, more natural rise of the mouth of the little valley. As they climbed, Harry could catch glimpses through the winter-thin branches on the opposite side, of tangled paths and gnarled trees, and little ponds and waterfalls, maybe a hidden bench or two. Malfoy had pulled ahead of him; he jogged to catch up.

The Malfoy he remembered from the trials had been thin, frail, colorless. He certainly still didn’t look like he could outpace Harry.

As they drew equal, nearing the crest of the hill, Harry saw that beyond the trees was another little dip, this one soft and natural, a meadow. He wondered if he owned any sheep. Their path ended at a sort of lookout, equipped with a very cold-looking marble bench blanketed in wet leaves. Harry didn’t disturb it.

“Look, Potter” Malfoy said, very quietly from right behind Harry. It took a lot not to jump, but he did look. Across the grassy hillocks were bright specks of red, and gentle bird-cries. “Fire pheasants. Not many estates have  _ those  _ anymore. They’re closely related to Mongolian ringneck pheasants on the continent, you know, only these have been cultivated on Wizarding estates for centuries. If you know your lore, once in a hundred generations, a fire pheasant egg hatches a phoenix.”

Harry had not known, though he had known a phoenix. If you squinted, perhaps these could look like very small versions of Dumbledore’s old pet. Harry felt an odd pang. He just nodded to Malfoy’s speech. For a little moment, they stood in the currents and eddies of the wind and watched the pheasants meander across the hillside, feathers catching the weak November light like faint red sparks from a wand. In the distance, Harry smelled pine and woodsmoke. He thought he’d spent a lot of time in silence since the war. Silence, yes-- but not quiet.

They walked back along the crest of the hill, wild gardens below them where the valley narrowed to a thin gully, walls of Mapperton growing larger in front of them. Malfoy took him through a heavy door that had to be charmed open and into the walled-in kitchen gardens.

Harry discovered immediately why it was charmed shut. For one, the kitchen gardens were much bigger than they had any right to be if a Muggle was judging by the outside circumference. For another, venomous tentacula vied for space with mandrake root, and wolfsbane grew in droves. A pond in the corner grew gillyweed and sour watercress. He could recognize a fair amount of them from years of Herbology: Asphodel and wormwood, nettle and dittany and baneberry in what looked like a blaze of varieties. African red pepper, for some reason, and an alihotsy tree trained against the far wall.  Dorema ammoniacum vied with poisonous angel’s trumpet and belladonna. Fluxweed mustards had been weeded out by someone and left to wilt on the stepping stones; Harry grimaced, because he remembered second year, and how hard it had been to actually harvest any of that by the full moon, even with the Cloak, in order to brew their first Polyjuice potion.

Malfoy saw it too, and cursed, stooping to gather the fluxweed in bunches. He charmed a bubble of water around the roots and scowled around at the garden, looking for an absent culprit. It was only just occuring to Harry that, Malfoy aside, this place must have  _ staff _ . At least, he figured, a gardener.

Harry looked around a little more and thought he’d have to take the house, or else Neville would actually kill him.

“That’s the gardens, and a bit of the grounds,” said Malfoy, frown firmly in place. “May I  _ respectfully and professionally _ request, Potter, that you actually look at the house now?”

“Lead the way, Mr Malfoy,” said Harry magnanimously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm @astronicht on twitter


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well folks, it turns out a master's degree really slows down fic production. but hey, I felt guilty enough about the only fic i've written all term being 15k of badly plotted Stargate Atlantis lesbian!AU that I figured I could at least brush up and post this chapter before returning to that monstrosity. 
> 
> I believe I promised ancestral kneazles; they'll show up eventually.

Perhaps to be a pain, Malfoy brought him into the chapel first. It was nice, scrubbed clean of most decorations that must have once weighed down its ceilings. It was all dark wood pews and pale blue walls.

“The stained glass is mainly 17th Century Flemish, though some of it is older English heraldic,” Malfoy said, quite casually, Harry thought. “Like most churches on Wizarding estates, it is called ‘All Saints’, and was built as a gift to the local population, Wizarding and Muggle alike, though now it is solely used for Muggles, for the most part.”

_ Wizards do like to invent their own gods instead,  _ Harry thought privately, thinking of Tom Riddle, whose name was always too feared or loved to be breathed. “ _ Fuck you, Tom,” _ he added under his breath, just for good measure.

“While its origins are obviously medieval--” were they? “--the first remodeling was done in 1704, when the windows were redone, and the second in 1846 added the porch and vestry.  The south doorway is original medieval and the stump of the west tower is 15th century. The carved pulpit -- over  _ here _ Potter -- and a few of the choir stalls are Jacobean.”

The Dursleys had been very respectably C of E, and paid Dudley fifteen pounds twice every year to stay quiet through Christmas and Easter service. Aunt Marge had once suggested giving Harry away to “the Catholics” to serve as an alter boy, and that was about the extent of his church-going experience. Maybe he’d ask Hermione what to do with it. He didn’t think she was terribly religious, but in the end, she’d spent holidays in the Muggle world. He’d never lived normally in it.

Behind the altar, hidden by a curtain, Malfoy showed him a subtle little passageway that linked the church and the house.

“As I understand it, there was a very lazy rector in charge of this parish at one point,” sniffed Malfoy. “This passage was not original.”

They emerged into a room that truly did resemble Hogwarts a little. Not its great hall or soaring stone, but places like the Gryffindor common room; snug, ancient. Only, this room wasn’t decorated in red and gold; it was green and brown and blue, instead.One wall was lined with books, and a long, heavy table dominated the light coming in from the windows, which faced the front garden. The walls were all panelled wood.

“Beer-polished wood,” said Malfoy, gesturing to the panelling. “And no one has dated the tapestry yet, though we’ll have experts coming in.” Said tapestry was a wooded scene, sort of hard to make out. This was probably a good thing, because Harry was pretty sure it displayed quite a few Wizarding characteristics. A few witches were chasing a unicorn; a few centaurs were roasting a wizard alive over a spit. A duel was occuring in the upper right corner, and dragons featured heavily, apparently embattled with werewolves. A goblin uprising was storming the castle on the lower left, and something that was not quite Quidditch was being played in the middle distance, with what looked like a severed head for a ball.

“It’s...nice,” said Harry. He wondered if he would have nightmares.

He’d probably imagined it, but he thought that maybe Draco Malfoy had almost smiled.

They padded across the thick oriental carpet, woven through with sea serpents and squids, and into a small hall which connected the front entrance and the rest of the house.

“Mapperton: A History,” said Malfoy with a wry twist of his mouth. “Mapperton village was entered in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Malperetone. I understand that this means ‘farmstead where maple trees grow’, which is very original. The Tudor manor built here in the 1540s still stands as part of the house -- it’s the gabled north wing, with the twisted chimneys and finials.” At Harry’s glazed look, he added, “Do keep up, Potter, because you  _ will  _ need to be able to recite all of this.”

Harry decided then and there that he would never recite anything involving the word ‘finials’, and Draco Malfoy could die trying.

“In the 1660s, this hall and the west front were rebuilt. Also at the time, the two stable blocks and the dovecote were erected. In 2000, we plan to turn one of the stable blocks into a cafe. The balustrade was added in the 18th century and one of the Bodrepps created the Georgian staircase and north front around the same time. As for the village, the plague of 1666 knocked out most of the inhabitants, after which the lord of the manor ordered the homes torn down. The numbers in the village have remained almost unchanged since the 17th century.”

“You’re a terrible tour guide, you know that?” mumbled Harry. He felt a headache building at his temples, and even the next room -- “Drawing room,” announced Malfoy -- which was definitely reminiscent of the Gryffindor common room didn’t cheer him up all that much. He didn’t care about ancient history or modern improvements; he cared if Malfoy knew anything more about his dad.

The drawing room was ringed with portraits, who stared keenly back at him as he searched their faces for his father, or any hint of familial relation.

“Do pretend to be interested,” Malfoy sighed. “This fireplace is really very spectacular.”

“It looks like a fireplace, Malfoy.”

Arms were crossed. “Well. It’s an  _ old _ fireplace.”

“Are you trying to tell me that’s a good thing?”

Malfoy’s mouth twitched, rodent-like and annoyed. His features were sharp and his hands looked cold. “It’s an important thing. Come along.”

Harry came along. He viewed the Georgian staircase, and the frankly odd bird paintings brought back from Captain Cook’s voyages, which were stuffed somehow so that they were slightly 3D. He took his tour of the small, carefully modernized kitchen and a private room, which contained a bed that was perhaps built in a century that did not use rope in its construction, and a large piano. He stayed straight-faced as Malfoy told him ridiculous facts, like that the man who had invented the sandwich had lived here, and Mapperton had once been known for breeding kneazles, and among the antiquarian book collection was the original recipe for chocolate ice cream. He shied away from the ancient rope-beds and peered at quite a lot more tapestries. At the top of the stairs, before they went back down, Malfoy stopped, and  with some hesitation, pointed to an unmoving portrait.

“Normally we would rotate in the Muggle portraits for summertime, when there are guests who could be confused by a regular painting, but Cecil insisted I put those two up. I assume they’re some of your tawdry relations.”

Malfoy had no way of knowing that Harry, age eleven, had looked into the mirror of Erised, and had seen these faces once before, so far back in the crowd that he thought perhaps he was inventing the connection for himself. His great-grandparents, he thought. He wondered why they’d had a Muggle take their portrait, and make them silent ghosts frozen in paint. He wanted to reach out and trace the sharp cut of his great-grandmother’s bobbed haircut, his great-grandfather’s heavily embroidered dress robes and turban.

“Come along, Potter,” said Malfoy from the bottom of the staircase.

-

They found Mr Brownott feeding the chickens. Malfoy frowned.

“Is the gardener not here, Mr Brownott?” he asked, sweeping ahead of Harry.

“Oh he is,” said Brownott, “But I told him he had enough work to do, and you had the tour well-handled. How was it, Mr Potter?”

The unruffled Mr Brownott did seem a little on edge to hear Harry’s answer, though scrupulously professional about it.

“Nice,” said Harry, and when that didn’t appear to be enough, “I liked the lawn.”

Next to him, Malfoy made a little pained noise.

-

“It’s not a ruin or anything,” Harry told Ron over dinner. “Just...old.”

“Malfoy, though,” said Ron for the fifth time. It was becoming a sort of afterthought, like ‘sorry’ when you bumped elbows in a crowd, or bless-you, or amen. Harry wasn’t sure it was conscious anymore.

“I suppose he  _ is _ qualified,” Harry said, feeling just as baffled as Ron looked.

Ginny snorted into her roast beef. Mrs Weasley had done meat-two-veg, and Ron was happily distracting himself with Harry’s incredibly weird day in order to avoid the green beans, which he had managed to loathe into adulthood.

“Well Harry, dear, it doesn’t matter to me who’s been taking care of it. I’m glad somebody has. Houses are important, you know,” said Mrs Weasley, heaping more green beans onto Ron’s plate.

Teddy, who was still around, stared at Harry and banged his spoon.

“Wizarding houses especially,” Ron muttered to Harry out of the side of his mouth, “they’re rare and special, like.”

Harry thought unwillingly of Malfoy Manor. In the courtroom, nothing had changed on Malfoy’s face when the ruling took the manor away. But what did Harry know?

“You say the house and grounds seem to combine the Wizarding and Muggle?” broke in Mr Weasley, who had wrestled Teddy’s spoon away and was now trying to feed him carrot mash. “Well Harry, I’ll check it out for you, if you like. I’m sure it’s not, er, another Grimmauld Place per se, but I can verify that you’re up to code on you Muggle-repellant charms and the like, and no dangerous Magical items left unsecure.”

“Oh,” said Harry. “Er, sure. Thank you, Mr Weasley.”

“Well, would tomorrow work?”

“Huh?” Harry asked.

Mr Weasley grinned. Teddy sensed weakness and stole back the spoon. “No time like the present! Tomorrow, Harry? Or, well, if you’re really anxious, I can do it tonight! It’s never too late for family.”

Harry basked in some sort of glow of being so casually included in ‘family’, even though he was aware through years of hard experience that Mr Weasley had probably stopped thinking about anything at all the moment Harry had said “I dunno, it’s kind of both Muggle and Wizarding?”. Next to him, Ron was trying not to laugh. Ginny was employing an astounding poker face.

“BA BA BA,” added Teddy.

-

As it happened, the Weasleys had Teddy for the weekend, and Mrs Weasley had bridge club with her friends of a Sunday, so Harry took Mr Weasley with a baby strapped to his front to the local portkey office, and they walked again on a hilltop outside Toller Whelme. Harry was not bad at Apparition, and probably neither was Mr Weasley, but there wasn’t a war on anymore. No one would Apparate with a child under the age of three unless it was an emergency.

You could barely tell that it was in fact Teddy strapped to Mr Weasley’s front, as most of what Harry could see was brightly patterned knitwear, topped with a peaked hat in bright purple yarn that was about as long as Teddy’s body that swung as they walked along the lane.

Harry felt oddly comforted with Mr Weasley as his ally, even though he was dreading the inevitable meeting at the top of the hill. Mr Weasley walked briskly, in a fervour of excitement, and chatted to Harry or Teddy or the hedges about what they might find in a house where Muggle and Wizarding architecture met and mixed.

They crested the hill after the carpark, and Mr Weasley looked around at the stone wall, the chickens and the “stables”, the welcome cottage with its two doors and the high gates up the lane, where the chimneys of Mapperton House could be seen poking above the trees behind the churchyard.

Harry hadn’t realized he was waiting for something until Mr Weasley leaned over and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, squeezed once, and said, “Very nice, Harry!”

It was stupid to feel happy and relieved about that. It reminded him, a little, of Lupin, but he couldn’t think about that with Teddy right there, making inquisitive noises from under his hat. Still, he felt a prickle in his chest that was mostly nice, for once.

“You’re late, Potter,” called a voice from the churchyard.

He squinted and saw, under the wide and ancient pine, Draco Malfoy descending the flagstone steps and winding his way through the anonymous gravestones, holding of all things two large potted azaleas in each arm.

Mr Weasley and Malfoy stared at each other for a long time. It looked like a showdown in a bad Western TV show that Dudley used to watch on Sunday mornings, only it was taking place in a Dorset churchyard, under a big old evergreen pine. And one party was holding azaleas and the other a baby, instead of pistols.

Then Malfoy opened his mouth, and Harry was ready for some B-grade gore, or at least some barbed remnants of past times they’ve stood like this, Harry and Mr Weasley, only Malfoy was missing Lucius at his shoulder, Lucius’s hand on his neck, Lucius’s sneer.

Malfoy opened his mouth, and… “Oh thank sodding Merlin, you’re here for the ekletritian. I refuse to watch this. It’s all yours,” and swept past them up the lane, any expression covered by the swaying leaves of the azaleas.

“Er, I think we should follow him,” Harry told Mr Weasley, who joined Harry in trotting up the lane. Malfoy managed to open the gates while still keeping a hold on his flowers, and then shifted them enough to point with a tremulous hand at the front doors.

“She’s in  _ there _ ,” he said, and immediately disappeared through the screening hedges around the wing to the left, probably to the gardens beyond. After a second, a single azalea poked out again.

“Oh, I fired the gardener, Mr Potter,” added Draco Malfoy’s voice, oddly formal. “I will of course take full responsibility of finding a replacement.” The azalea disappeared again.

While Harry was boggling over ‘Mr Potter’, Mr Weasley managed to tow him in the front doors, where they quickly found the electrician on a stepladder in the small front hall.

“Hiya,” she said, removing her head from Harry’s ceiling. “You’re the owner?” The electrician was young, had a round face and black hair cropped short, chestnut skin and sharp brown eyes.

She was addressing Mr Weasley, but Harry nodded and muttered, “Yeah.”

Her eyes jumped from Mr Weasley to Harry and widened in surprise. “Wow, um, okay. Nice to meet you.” To her credit, she moved on. “You have a very interesting wiring situation -- not uncommon for this sort of house, don’t worry, I have definitely seen stranger.”

Harry, unsure of how Wizarding accoutrements might look to a Muggle electrician, figured she must’ve done work on Wizarding houses before, even if she didn’t know it. Hopefully that was a good thing.

“My name’s Nancy Bird, I’m with the company. Me dad’s the owner, and he trained me up. There are a few changes I’d like to make to get you up to code, but I haven’t finished my first walk-through yet, so I’ll do that and get you a quote before I start in on anything, obviously. We’re the best in the biz with old houses though, and our prices are fair, so you’ll want to go with us. Is this your guardian, or will you be signing off yourself?”

Harry looked at Mr Weasley and said, “Er,” as Mr Weasley said, “Sort of? But not legally. You’ll have to sign, Harry.”

“That’s...fine,” said Wang Shu, still on her stepladder.

“Actually,” said Mr Weasley, not prepared to sit idly any longer, “I’m  _ fascinated  _ by electricity and I, erm, would love to watch your work, Miss Bird.”

“Sure, no skin off my back. You can report to Mr Potter as well,” she added, probably still trying to suss out their relationship, and how Mr Potter, whose accent had picked up and retained some strong strains of Greater London, was in charge of this whole house.

Even though he was the same age as Harry and avoiding her like she had leprosy, Malfoy had probably made a lot more sense to her.

“Please call me Arthur,” said Mr Weasley, shaking her hand in two of his.

“Sure. Can you grab my torch, Arthur?”

“Of course! Actually, I even brought my own, and -- oh. Harry, would you be able to take Teddy?”

Harry had held Teddy a few times, but was not sure how Mr Weasley even got the Teddy-holding contraption on. It came off with what looked like ease, and Harry thought maybe Mr Weasley had forgotten that not everyone had several decades of practice with children, but he at least helped Harry into the contraption. It felt a bit like a badly executed body-bind jinx once it was on, but Teddy seemed unconcerned.

“If he cries just walk him around, Harry, there’s a good chap. Right, Miss Bird, do you quite mind if I find myself a step stool?”

Harry escaped out the front doors as Mr Weasley darted into the red drawing room to “find” a step stool with a summoning charm.

Walk him around, Harry thought, and headed around the side of the house to the valley garden beyond.

-

He’d expected Malfoy to make himself scarce during this visit, but he and his azaleas were easily found just outside the orangery, spattering dirt on the pristine greenhouse glass while he carefully planted the shrubs against the back wall.

He looked up at Harry’s careful, heavy footsteps. Harry remembered the ice and was gripping the stone edging the stairs for dear life as he felt his way down. Teddy was blocking his view of his feet.

Harry couldn’t have described what exactly Malfoy’s face did, but it was doing one thing when he looked up, and quite another when he realized why Harry was walking like an old biddy.

“Who is that?” Malfoy asked. His scarf had slipped down as he worked. Harry could see his throat bob. His hands in muddy dragon-hide gloves were still half buried in dirt, unmoving.

“Teddy Lupin,” said Harry, and he found it hard to say.

“I thought--maybe.”

“You thought he was  _ mine _ ?” asked Harry, incredulous.

“No! What the hell, Potter, no,” barked Malfoy, bewildered. “I just-- I thought it might be him, but I wasn’t sure. I don’t know what he looks like.”

“Neither does he,” said Harry.

“That is rather a lot of knitwear,” said Malfoy. “But I’m sure he does have a face under it all.”

Harry adjusted the fall of the pompom hat. “No, I mean, he’s like his mum. A Metamorphmagus . He changes all the time.”

These words stuck too. Like even as he said them, the imprint of them left something sticky and heavy in his chest. Like they didn’t leave, just multiplied. Harry hadn’t had time to feel guilty about it yet, how little he talked about Teddy.

“He’s my cousin, you know,” Malfoy said, but quietly, like he was speaking to himself, or repeating something he’d heard before. Then, to Harry, “Mother would want to see him.”

Harry had sat down on the stone wall. Teddy was not appreciating this, and had started to squirm. Harry went to get up again, and Malfoy said, “Oh, Merlin’s sake, here,” took off his gloves and did something to the baby holder that made it pop open at the front and deposited Harry’s godson into Draco Malfoy’s hands. He was about to stiffen, but this was cut off by the supremely weird sight of Malfoy swinging Teddy up onto his hip with something that looked like the ease of long practice.

Malfoy stood, patted Teddy on the back a little, and said, “Listen, he’ll stay much quieter if he’s able to look at things. I’ll show you all the landscaping plans that I’m obliged to put past you for ‘approval’ and it’ll keep him occupied. And  _ quiet.” _

He glared at Teddy, but it seemed like it might be -- a joke, an overblown bit of play.

“But you didn’t have any siblings,” Harry heard himself say.

“Can you imagine me as anything but an only child, really?” asked Malfoy, eyebrow raised. His fringe was just grown long enough to brush it. “I was raised in close-knit circles, Potter. I don’t think I had a playmate or held an infant who  _ wasn’t _ a cousin of some kind, but I did see a lot of them.”

Even though the evidence was in front of him, this confirmation that Malfoy had in fact held an infant before was messing with Harry’s head.

“I was a special case,” Malfoy added. “Pansy Parkinson alone had four younger sisters.”

Harry hadn’t known that; they must have been at Hogwarts with him. They might have been in the hall-- must have been in the hall when Pansy tried to sell Harry to save her own.

Malfoy was already striking out through the Italianate gardens; Harry hurried to follow, hurried to bury the past in the cold dirt, in the bases of the fountains, in the shadows between tree branches where leaves would grow.

“Why did you fire my gardener?” Harry asked after a while. He’d taken Teddy back once they’d come to the lower garden, feeling possessive even if he wasn’t so confident holding him.

Malfoy snorted. “Did you see what he did in the kitchen gardens? Pulling fluxweed was really only the final straw. He was awful, and Mapperton is  _ known  _ for its gardens, Potter. It has to have a gardener to go with that pedigree.”

“Are you putting forward your application?” Harry asked, and realized he was teasing after it was too late.

“Absolutely not,” came the reply. Harry realized for the first time that Draco Malfoy still walked like he had in the courtroom, with his chin tucked in, shoulders sharp. He noticed because now Malfoy’s jaw tipped up, nose in the air, like some parody of himself. “I am your  _ steward _ , Potter. I could never also be the gardener. That would just be gauche.”

“Then why the azaleas?”

“It  _ happens _ that the grounds need quite a lot of work, and a lot of new specimens. I will of course help in any area that requires particular attention. In any case, everything must be at least passable by Christmas.”

“Christmas?”

Malfoy sighed, and said to Teddy, “Merlin, I forget how many things he doesn’t know.”

“Hey,” said Harry, but Malfoy was flicking Teddy’s nose and took no notice of Harry.

“It’s an old tradition,” Malfoy said, still not looking at Harry. In the distance, Harry thought he could hear the pheasants calling, lonely in the hills. “It’s died out in a lot of Wizarding estates, but that’s no excuse to allow it to happen here,” he added, ending sharply.

“It’s a medieval tradition at least, and likely is older, though no one is sure which great houses began it, if they were celts or Romans.” Harry was in the middle of wondering if Malfoy was going to come out with some outlandish and terrible piece of history, like a House Elf gladiator ring, or the ritualistic killing of livestock, when he added, “Simply, on holidays the manor house is open to the tenants, or the local village.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize there were enough witches and wizards around here to do that,” Harry said, curious. The portkey office in Toller Whelme was more of a hill outside town with a shack on it that was cleaned out and inspected once a month.

“Oh, it’s for  _ everyone _ , and made even more difficult because of that,” sighed Malfoy. “If it’s done properly, at least. Muggles will overrun these gardens and hopefully have enough mulled wine to explain away any failed masking charms.”

Harry, who was watching a stone fountain cherub purposefully spit water on a robin, just nodded. “So, we have to host a party. For Christmas.”

“No,  _ you  _ have to host it. I should be all but invisible if I do my job correctly, which I intend to. This first year we must set a precedent.”

Harry was distracted for a while by the feeling of his stomach sinking. Christmas, which he had already been - not dreading, exactly. But hoping to be able to keep everyone’s various hurts private, inside the Burrow, not meant for the eyes of strangers.

“New Years too?” he asked presently, aware that a whine had crept into his voice.

“Yes, Potter, New Years too and all the holidays in between. Merlin, I think you’ll be able to grit your teeth and think of Godric, you know.”

On impulse, Harry asked, “Then, what’re we doing for bonfire night?”

“It’s a solely Muggle holiday, isn’t it?” Malfoy responded blankly, and before Harry could really get riled up about that, Malfoy added, “I’ve never celebrated it. What, does Mapperton need a...bonfire?”

Harry paused. For Teddy, Mrs Weasley announced that they’d be doing bonfire night early, letting it burn down when the sun went. George was in charge of a demonstration of Wheezes fireworks in Edinburgh, so the Burrow would be rather tame.

“Well then,” Harry said, feeling himself rise to a challenge. If that challenge was merely putting Draco Malfoy out, then so be it. After so much time trying to be aloof, fair, careful, it felt good to be petty. “If we need to host holiday celebrations for the local villages, bonfire night is the next one.”

No matter that it was in three nights. Harry was just grateful Halloween was over, and not to be dealt with for a year.

“When is it?” asked Malfoy, taking the bait.

“Remember, remember, the fifth of November,” Harry sing-songed back at him. Harry half expected him to balk and insist that there was no way preparations could be done in time, but after his initial shock, Malfoy’s lips formed a thin, grim line and he said,

“Well then, so be it. Now is the time to get started.”

And without further comment he turned and strode back along the path in long, purposeful strides, his coat whipping out behind him.

Harry was left halfway up a hill with Teddy in his arms, feeling like somehow he’d lost this round.

He took Teddy to the crest of the hill to see the meadow of the fire pheasants cawing mournfully, but it wasn’t as much fun when Teddy was getting fussy and not very easily impressed by the pretty birds. He cut back through the orchards on the crest of the hill, staring up at the bare, gnarled trees and wondering if they were still alive, or if Draco would soon be replanting them, too.

He hoped so. If they were dead, he hoped new things would get planted. He felt angry. It wasn’t that he was ready to set down the sight of empty battle-fields; it wasn’t like he was ready for poppies to bloom on the graves. That was in him, still; the sight and smell of it. It was like an explosion gone off in his chest that was still unfurling, and he couldn’t do anything about damage control until it was done damaging. But here, in his father’s house, he found he hated the idea that it too should be bleak. There was already the shrine in Godric’s Hollow; there were already so many places immortalizing the war, and why his mum had died, and why his dad had died, and Sirius, and Remus, and Tonks, and -

It felt like a disservice to make this another shrine to the dead. Like finally he was able to feel, what, family loyalty? For the Potters, he wouldn’t let the orchards die, because it was just two wars. Two wars with not even two decades in between, and still there was a Potter to inherit. And this house had stood through so many of them, right? Even if inside him those two wars were everything, dictated the why and the now and all of it, all of Harry Potter, born of a war and for a war. Enough of that.

He skirted through the kitchen gardens, the Teddy-holder a loose knot of straps like a large black spider swinging across his front. He had no idea how to get Teddy back into it, and was just hitching him a little higher on his shoulder when a voice asked, “Hey, d’ya need a hand?”

Harry was very confused for a minute until he placed that a strange man in the kitchen gardens was probably, hopefully, the new gardener.

“Alright?” Harry choked out in greeting once he got an eyeful of the new gardener.

“I’m Arram, sorry, I haven’t met many people here yet,” said Arram, who was several shades darker than Harry, maybe twenty-five, and looked like he should be sprawled out on a beach in Greece, ordering strange drinks and telling you that your eyes look good in this light. Additionally, he was wearing only a burgundy henley and trousers against the cold. “I’m the new gardener.”

Yes you are, thought Harry stupidly, and somehow you were who Draco fucking Malfoy saw fit to hire. Fit, his brain echoed, inane.

“Er,” he said aloud. “I’m Harry. Nice to meet you.”

He held out his hand to shake, and looking bemused, Arram took it.

Harry was very good at seeing the moment somebody realized who he was, at this point. Even the people like Arram, who didn’t flick their eyes up to his scar.

“Aw man,” said Arram, “I’ve gotta be the first person ever to mistake Harry freakin’ Potter for a landscaper.” He reached out and shook Harry’s hand again, like they were now being introduced properly. “Oh, and who is this?”

“Teddy,” Harry said. “He’s, er, my godson.”

Harry figured this was in the papers, but Arram was apparently going to be polite and pretend he didn’t know scandalous details of Harry’s life supplied by everything from the Prophet to Witch Weekly. Teddy made a weird chirping sound that might’ve been normal for babies and swung his head back like he wanted to fling himself on the ground. Harry swore and caught him just in time. Arram smiled and Harry felt himself flush.

“I swear I’m, er, I’m supposed to be holding him,” Harry stammered out like an idiot, steadying himself on a hazelnut tree trained against one garden wall. Teddy was still determinedly staring at Arram, his eyes switching quickly from green to Arram’s striking brown with flecks of gold, his hair growing out into a little baby fro.

Arram was stooping to fetch Teddy’s monstrous knit hat from an unidentifiable bed of what looked like mostly dead venus flytraps, saying, “It’s cool, it’s cool. I’ve seen more panic from actual parents before. I did placement at a primary school in Exeter after Hogwarts, and the mums and dads were crazier than the kids for sure.”

He came up with the hat and managed to glance up just in time to see Teddy grin back at him with a matching haircut. There was a pause.

“Wicked, little dude,” said Arram, patting Teddy’s head. “I have an aunt in Greece who’s a metamorphmagus.”

“His mum was,” Harry choked out, in answer to a question this man hadn’t asked. He was a Wizard, absolutely - there was a wand in his back pocket and he was able to enter the kitchen gardens and he’d been hired by Draco Malfoy and he’d just mentioned Hogwarts - but the illusion of distance remained. It felt nice, like Arram wasn’t angry or guilty or grieving. Harry tried not to lean into the feeling, linger in the garden, ask the fifteen thousand questions he had about Teddy that he wasn’t sure he was supposed to ask, if Wizards or real parents would know them and he’d be a fool for asking like a godfather could do much of anything. Draco fucking Malfoy was better at holding a kid than he was, for chrissake.

“It’s dead useful,” Arram said. “My aunt used to smuggle fake Muggle luxury goods in her, er, misspent youth. Now she helps people coming in across the Mediterranean get Muggle things, passports and stuff.”

Harry did not know how to respond to either of those things, but Arram glanced up - he was still kneeling close to Harry and Teddy - and got to his feet, face suddenly closed off, pleasant but not like it had been. Harry followed his gaze and saw Malfoy in the doorway to the rest of the house.

“Arram,” said Malfoy in a tight voice. “There’s a new planting out by the orangery I’d like you to keep an eye on. Exbury hybrid azaleas.”

“Those are hardy,” said Arram. “What kind?”

“Of course they’re hardy,” said Malfoy, muttering, “what do you take me for,” which Harry thought was amusingly rude. It was probably less amusing from your new boss, he thought, glancing at Arram’s carefully bland face. “Golden lights,” added Malfoy as an afterthought.

“Right,” said Arram, “thank you for letting me know, Draco.”

Malfoy just nodded and then said to Harry in an even stiffer voice, “You have a visitor.”

Mystified, Harry followed as Malfoy turned and swept into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't my baby!fic but here's Teddy anyway, Teddy-ing along~
> 
> @astronicht on twitter, folks

**Author's Note:**

> uhh i messed around with London a bit, because the Knob and oyster cards weren't a thing till about 2002 but eh, close enough. Sort of. It's 1999.


End file.
